Windows 11 market share is a “matter of state” at Microsoft, and the company is doing everything in its power to increase it, sometimes in tedious and disruptive ways. However, at other times we can say positive cases, for example when incompatibilities on computers are resolved and Microsoft unblocks Windows 11.

You already know that Windows 11 was born with much stricter hardware requirements than Windows 10. And not only because of the mandatory TPM or Secure Boot security module. It cannot be installed on a range of processors (even if they have sufficient features) or on older configurations such as MBR. All this officially, because in practice all these requirements can be skipped without too much trouble.

In addition to hardware requirements, Microsoft prevents device updates when you encounter incompatible componentssuch as the case of errors in sound drivers Intel Smart Sound technology (SST) and 11th generation Intel Core processors.

Company first recognized in November 2021 that some Intel audio drivers (version 10.29.0.5152 or 10.30.0.5152) were causing blue screenshots on Windows 11 21H2 devices and therefore added security restrictions that blocked Windows 10 updates from being offered to affected computers. The release of Windows 11 22H2 also did not solve the situation.

Microsoft has unblocked Windows 11

Although Intel has developed new versions of the SST driver, only now (two and a half years later) has Microsoft lifted the security restrictions. Most affected users will be able to install updated drivers through Windows Update, while IT administrators can use Windows Update for Business, Intune, or Autopatch to deploy the new Intel SST audio drivers and remove the update block from devices.

It is not known how many teams will be affected. While this will by no means solve Windows 11’s low market share compared to Windows 10, it’s always positive that these driver or application incompatibility issues are resolved. As we approach the end of support for Windows 10 (October 2025), we expect the number of issues to increase. And we wouldn’t be surprised if Microsoft “enabled” the hardware requirements again.